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Saturday, October 13, 2012

Stack Rundown, 10/13/2012

Not a whole lot of stuff to go over this week, just DC's two new #1s, Suicide Squad, and Frankenstein. Hit the jump for my thoughts.

Team 7 #1

DC's secret history rolls on, with Black Canary and company headed towards a floating prison that the government had lost contact with. Why? Because some spoooooky stuff (Eclipso). Justin Jordan's writing remains pretty great, and I love that the overall narration of the book seems to be taking place after the team had failed, I hope that sticks. I'm honestly in this mostly for the Black Canary/Kurt Lance thing, given how big of a Birds of Prey fan I am, but I'm finding the other characters pretty entertaining as well. The only issue I had with it was again, the coloring. Going back to the #0 issue, the new character Dean Higgins is clearly a black man, while Alex Fairchild clearly has red hair (as he always has), then on that final page, for some reason Dean was white, and Alex was a blonde... and it continued through out this issue. It irked the shit out of me, I'm not going to lie. Also, this issue felt like a #2, rather than a #1, given how #0 felt like #1... confused yet? Regardless, still a good book.

Suicide Squad #13

Not Gothamy enough to warrant it's own post this month. Here we saw shit hit the fan in Basilisk HQ, meanwhile the real Black Spider attacked Amanda Waller at her home. El Diablo gets frozen, Iceberg gets a hand chopped off, and Deadshot shoots himself through the chest, to shoot Regulus. Yeah, if some dude can survive in King Shark's stomach for god knows how long, I'm willing to bet Deadshot isn't dead. Overall... Eh. This book surprised me in that it was better than I initially expected, but hasn't done much to wow me since. This is one of those books I wouldn't mind a creative shake up in, just to freshen it up a bit, not because it's particularly bad or anything.

The Phantom Stranger #1

In case you hadn't figured this one out already, but this was the issue that Raven came back to the DCU. She's met by the ol' Stranger, who says he'll help her, then promptly turns her over to Papa Trigon, because he's a dick. The art took a different turn, with Philip Tan "embellishing" over Brent Anderson's pencils, and while Philip Tan can do some cool stuff, it feel like the mix between the two came off kinda weird... just give Tan the book straight up. As for the story itself? There's nothing that's outright offensively bad to me, but already I get the feeling that the book could be so much more. Yes, there has only been two issues, and overall, they've been fine, but I just have that gut feeling that this book could be really better than it is... a lot like Worlds' Finest. I mean, I'm just blabbering on here, say I, Vampire eventually gets cancelled (probably not in the next wave of cuts, given the rumors of books destined for the axe), this would be a perfect book for that creative team. Fialkov's writing abilities, mixed with Sorrentino's shadowy art? Perfect fit. But I digress. At the moment, this book is fine, but I just hope better for it.

Frankenstein Agent of SHADE #13

So, I picked up this issue for the Rotworld tie in, and I've got to say, I'm officially lost. I looked up whats going on in the book recently, with Victor Frankenstein coming back and what not, but I'm just confused as to where this takes place in Rotworld. Did Frankenstein somehow get transported a year into the DCU like Alec and Buddy? I'm not really sure. Probably going to need to reread it before the next one. Other than that, nothing all to Rotworldy actually happened, so I guess I have time to figure stuff out!

Punk Rock Jesus #4

So, shit really hit the fan in this issue, and real quick. From page two, things just start going to hell, and it gets pretty crazy. Long story short, Chris's mother dies this issue, which I wasn't expecting, given the fact she survived last issue. This was also the issue where the actual "Punk Rock" in Punk Rock Jesus begins, seeing as Chris runs away and joins a band. Now, this is an interesting point in the book for me. All in all, the book is fantastic, but this is the part where the main character goes all "Fuck the system, fuck cooperate america" so on, and so on. While I'm in now way a "suit" this is the kind of stuff I find to be pretty obnoxious after awhile. In the end, I get that it's sort of the point, to make this character change, but I hope that in the final two issues, there's something more other than Chris being a stereotypical punk guy, and to be honest, I'm completely confident that the series will deliver that. Also, final note... Thomas is a badass and probably the best character in the series... just sayin'.